January update: vape

 I needed to buy a new battery, but I eventually managed to get all three hives vaped: The Benedictium, the Salomium, and the Lucium.

Honey harvest update

 I got a good 12 or more pounds from the Salomium in November, so we had a very merry Christmas with plenty of honey (and lip balm) for everyone.

Feed and bee escape

 I pulled the two supers off the Salomium a few weeks ago and put a gallon of feed on top. The one super was quite full, the other fairly light.

Today, I replaced that gallon of feed, which the bees had hardly touched.

I put a bee escape on the Benedictium, and its super is not very heavy at all.

MAQS for three hives

 What a month! The bamboo honey flow should be starting any day now.

The first week of August, I put feed on the hives, and got stung.

The second week of August, I fired up the smoker, suited up and went to take the feeder off the Josephium and put in MAQS, and got chased away with multiple stings. I went back wearing bee pants (which I had never worn before) and leather gloves, and got chased away again with more stings in my hand and arm.

I taped up the gloves and went back and, finally, mission accomplished.

I ordered some real beekeeper gloves from Country Barn Farm and picked them up last week.

Today I went out with full armor and a fully fueled smoker. I put a super on the Josephium and took out its bottom board. I put bottom boards and MAQS on the Salomium and the Benedictium. The Salomium's super was HEAVY! I added another pink super to it. I added a super to the Benedictium as well. Here's to an autumn harvest.

I retired with no new stings.

Update and Feed

We've been in quite the drought. Although it has not been totally dry, we had two big downpours last week, it has been hot, humid, and largely rainless since I last posted.

I've been looking for signs of a late acacia bloom this year and have seen none. Quite the opposite.

So I decided it's time for more feed. Three more gallons.

I put a fresh gallon on the Benedictium (white and northmost (leftmost)). No problem.

I put a new, green deep on the Salomium, on top of the pink super which has been turned into another brood chamber by its ridiculously fertile queen. This deep is merely an attic into which I placed a pail of feed.

As I attempted to place a pair of spacers (bee-space spacers) there, I was greeted with amazingly swift  defensive behaviors. (I'm glad I decided to go with long pants. No smoker though :(, Oh well.) I succeeded eventually.

Similar story with the Josephium, though they were less extreme.

All three hives look amazingly healthy and fertile. All three hives are bearding (very thick). I tried to remove the bee guard from the Josephium, but it seems to be glued in. I'll try later when the beard is not so thick.

Inspection

Well the July honey flow is over. Or is it? I'm not sure I ever noticed that the acacias (a.k.a. locusts) were in bloom. Did I sleep through it? Or was the spring too cold?

I put another deep on the Josephium. They look like their going great. I put a fresh gallon of feed on top of the new deep; they had drained their previous pail.

The Benedictium looks like it's doing fine. They too had drained their pail, so I put on a fresh gallon.

My plan today was to put the bee-escape between the Salomium's super and its deeps, but when I peeked in I saw that they had turned it into an extra brood box! That made me wonder what the deeps looked like, and should I reverse them? When I began to disassemble them I saw they were packed with very angry bees, and there was plenty of brood at the top of the lower deep and bottom of the upper. At this point I was smoking full time to keep the bees at bay, so I chickened out and re-assembled the hive and got out of there.

What shall I do? The hive looks really strong. Brenda suggested adding a queen excluder to the top of the medium, and start with new supers. If we haven't had the acacia flow yet, that's a good idea. If we have, it's time to start feeding for the summer dearth.

I'll post again on Sunday.

More feed

I put more feed on the Benedictium and on the Josephium. I had put new buckets on two weeks ago. The Benedictium left plenty in their old bucket, but the Josephium drained theirs dry.